District of Columbia to Utah: home inspector license reciprocity

Utah began licensing home inspectors in 2026, and it did it in an unusual way. House Bill 58 of the 2025 general session created a new license classification called Private Home Inspector, defined in statute as an individual who offers services to the public and examines residential dwellings and their components to identify potential issues associated with the sale or purchase of real property. The bill took effect on 1 January 2026 and the Division of Professional Licensing opened applications and began enforcing the requirement on 1 May 2026. The classification sits inside the division's existing Building Inspector program, next to the Combination Inspector and Limited Inspector licenses held by code officials, and is overseen by the Building Inspector Licensing Board. The unusual part is what Utah asks for. There is no state examination, no state-set education requirement, no experience threshold and no trainee tier. Instead the division requires a current and active national certificate from one of three named bodies - the American Society of Home Inspectors, the International Association of Certified Home Inspectors, or the International Code Council as a Residential Combination Inspector - and two insurance policies, general liability of $500,000 and errors and omissions of $500,000, each naming the division as certificate holder. Both the certification and the insurance have to be kept current for as long as the license is held, and letting either lapse is a disciplinary matter. Licenses in this program expire on 30 November of odd years. Utah effectively outsources the competence test to the certifying bodies and keeps the consumer protection for itself in the form of mandatory insurance and disciplinary jurisdiction.

The District of Columbia issues no home inspector license, certificate or registration, so an inspector moving here has no District credential to apply for, no examination to sit and nothing to transfer from another state. The Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection publishes the full list of occupational and professional licenses it issues through its seven boards, two commissions and three programs - architects, interior designers and landscape architects; athlete agents; barbers, cosmetologists, estheticians and body artists; combat sports; certified public accountants; funeral directors; the industrial trades; professional engineers and land surveyors; real estate brokers, salespersons and property managers; real estate appraisers; private detectives, security officers and special police officers; and tour guides - and home inspector is not among them. It is not a business license activity either: the Contractor and Construction Services category carries exactly two activities, General Contractor/Construction Manager and Home Improvement Contractor, and the District's full list of licensed business activities contains no home inspection entry. What an inspector does need is an ordinary business license, because D.C. Code section 47-2851.02 requires any person doing business in the District to maintain a Basic Business License, and work that is not separately enumerated is licensed under the General Sales and Services category as a General Business - $99 for a two-year term or $198 for four years, with no examination, no education or experience requirement and no professional board behind it. What binds a District home inspector instead is general consumer law. The Consumer Protection Procedures Act makes it unlawful, whether or not any consumer is in fact misled or damaged, to represent that a service has characteristics, benefits, a certification or an approval it does not have, to claim a status or affiliation the person does not hold, to misrepresent a material fact that tends to mislead, to fail to state a material fact if the failure tends to mislead, to use innuendo or ambiguity about a material fact, or to falsely state that repairs are needed; and section 28-3905(k) lets a consumer sue in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia for treble damages or $1,500 per violation, whichever is greater, plus reasonable attorney's fees, punitive damages and an injunction. The District has enacted no home inspector practice act - no statutory standard of care, and no conflict-of-interest rule of the kind that bars inspecting a property you were paid to repair - so the written inspection agreement together with contract and negligence law sets the duty owed. Because the District holds no home inspector examination, the National Home Inspector Examination has nothing to stand in for here, and any "certified" designation an inspector advertises comes from a private trade association rather than from the District; the one place District law uses the phrase is section 42-2602.01, which lets a Home Purchase Assistance Program buyer receive a grant of up to $25,000 for repairs "identified by a certified home inspector in writing" without saying who does the certifying. The District does license the work on either side of an inspection: the Board of Industrial Trades licenses plumbers and gasfitters, electricians, refrigeration and air conditioning mechanics, steam and operating engineers, asbestos workers and the elevator trades, so a repair that comes out of a report belongs to one of them; building, remodeling and home improvement work needs a Basic Business License with a General Contractor/Construction Manager or Home Improvement Contractor endorsement; and putting a value on the property is the work of the Board of Real Estate Appraisers rather than the inspector.